Cameron ‘Porn’ Advisor’s website ‘hacked’ – Threatens/Libels Blogger

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I’m perhaps one of the last people you’d expect to see stepping up to defend Paul Staines (aka Guido Fawkes) but you’d be wrong because there are principles that come into play whenever a blogger, even one as notorious as Guido, is subjected to an unjustified, hectoring attack by a bullying politician for reasons that have never been better expressed than by the playwright Robert Bolt:

Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast– man’s laws, not God’s– and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

A Man for All Seasons

At some unspecified point, but probably in the last few days, David Cameron’s technologically illiterate self-appointed wannabe Net Nanny, Claire Perry, has had her insecure website hacked, and from the look of things it appears that- amongst other things – she may very well have been Goatse’d (relax, link SFW), the discovery of which led to Guido running the following story at Order-Order.com.

Okay, so that’s all just a bit embarrassing for an MP who’s making a concerted, if ill-conceived, dishonest and idiotic, effort to censor the internet but nothing like as embarrassing as her response (via Twitter) to Guido’s article:

https://storify.com/Unity_MoT/claire-perry-vs-guido

There are a couple of very obvious observations to make about this particular exchange beyond the fact that she evidently doesn’t understand the difference between a hyperlink and a screenshot:-

The first is that Perry’s apology to “anyone affected by the hacking of my website sponsored by @GuidoFawkes” is quite clearly defamatory, assuming that Guido didn’t in fact ‘sponsor’ the website hacking – and frankly, I’ve known Guido long enough to know that he’s certainly not dumb enough to get his hands dirty in such a manner.

The second is that, having failed to intimidate Guido into dropping his article, Perry resorts to threatening his paid gig as a columnist at the Sun on Sunday, and whatever you think of his decision to take the Murdoch shilling, the fact remains that threats of this kind are absolutely characteristic of the would-be bully who fails to get their own way on the internet and a key reason why so many bloggers have, over the years, chosen to write under a pseudonym, particularly those of us who write about controversial subjects and issues.

If nothing else, Perry’s antics in her exchange with Guido lend a considerable degree of credence to PC Pro’s recent report, which claimed the Perry effectively hijacked a recent ‘summit’ between the Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, and Internet Service Providers, in order to push her own agenda:

Culture minister Maria Miller had summoned Google, BT, Virgin Media, Sky and other companies to the Houses of Parliament today to discuss ways to better combat online child abuse. Four leading ISPs agreed to contribute a further £1 million to the cause, on top of previous donations, and to take a more proactive stance to removing child abuse images.

However, a source within the meeting described proceedings as “fractious”, with politicians failing to grasp the technicalities involved in filtering child abuse images.

The source also claimed that Miller was sidelined by her Conservative colleague Claire Perry, who has waged a long-running campaign to force ISPs to filter any adult content – not just illegal child abuse images – at source.

“It was a fractious, wide-ranging, meeting notionally hosted by Maria Miller but hijacked by Claire Perry,” said the insider.

The insider claimed that little progress was made toward developing practical solutions to child abuse. “The Home Office opened with some encouraging noises about international efforts, but generally speaking the politicians there fundamentally – or wilfully – misunderstand the technical and legal aspects.”

“Little discussion was given to the measures put forward by industry, and any discussion of practical steps was closed down.”

It’s worth noting the Perry’s actual government ‘job’ is as a Parliamentary Private Secretary (i.e. glorified bag-carrier) to Phillip Hammond, the Secretary of State for Defence (i.e. it has fuck all to do with Culture, Media and Sport portfolio), which in itself is pretty terrifying thought – the combination of deep-seated ignorance of something as basic as the difference between a screenshot and hyperlink and modern military hardware really doesn’t bear contemplating.

In all, I’d be inclined to suggest somewhere that Nanny Perry can stick her porn-blocking firewall were it not for the fact that it appear that whoever hacked her site beat me to it.

What I would suggest, however, is that Perry really should take the time to acquaint herself with the meaning of the words ‘Streisand effect‘ before she starts trying to bully, threaten and libel bloggers.

I think Maya meant Ms. Perry is quite literally a ‘stupid woman’, that is to say, a woman who is stupid by virtue of being uneducated on certain matters, much in the same way you would label an uneducated male a ‘stupid man’, and NOT that she is stupid by virtue of being a woman. Kindly jump off the feminist wagon; men, by and large, are not misogynistic pigs you’d like to believe them to be, and I speak from experience, having been a man for the past 23 years.
This is all.

I watched this entertaining spat unfold on Twitter last night but found it chilling that an MP would defame a prominent blogger in this way. The MP in question is technically illiterate and, worryingly, advising David Cameron on new Internet censorship laws.

There is no issue of defamation here. We merely have someone not technically literate stumbling over the terminology, and responding to the baiting from Guido in the same way that any normal person would.

This is clearly defamation – she has clearly accued Guido of hacking her site and supporting hackers. On both counts there is neither proof of this and is bringing his name into ill repute – going insofar as to name him on Twitter.

Sally Bercow got a case against her for far less – the above wasn’t innuendo it was a flat out accusation without evidence and decryment of an individual.

Nonsense. Her site *was* hacked, and she reasonably supposed that Guido had done it, since she probably found out the fact from Guido. He was publicising it, gloatingly, which is not much different to supporting it.
Never encourage people to give money to lawyers, and always remember that the people who judge libel cases are, erm, lawyers.

Anyway, It’s irrelevant that she reasonably supposed it. She makes a claim of fact, which is neither clearly expressed as a fair comment, and neither is it true (I assume). That is a libelous comment, regardless of whether she believed it or not.

“He was publicising it, gloatingly, which is not much different to supporting it.”

How relevant is that supposed to be? Let’s say an unpopular public figure gets mugged. Someone tweets “Well, in his case, I saw that coming” or something like that. That someone gets publicly accused of being the perpetrator or an accomplice. Can you see this *not* being a libel/slander? That’s not “a reasonable supposition”.

Wait a minute- are you actually a lawyer? Not that you would honestly answer this question if you were but answer me this:
With the prescedent of Sally Bercow getting sued for defamation on the grounds of here one comment – why does Guido not have grounds for a defamation suit?
Which means, btw, it IS defamation and all this ‘reasonably supposed’ means not one thing in a court of law in the UK.

What possible reason could she have for supposing it was Guido? He only reported the event.
The Daily Mail reports about a new baby….can I reasonably suppose that Paul Dacre is the father?
The woman is clearly a vane idiot with an over blown self regard and an inflated value of her worth.

“the hacking of my website sponsored by @GuidoFawkes” sounds like defamation to me. She’s not stumbling over terminology, she’s stumbling over her fundamental understanding of the world if she thinks reporting an event is the same as sponsoring an event. Furthermore, she is not “merely” technically illiterate. My mother is merely technically illiterate. Ms Perry is technically illiterate but in an assumed position where she actually needs to be somewhat technically literate. Her right to be treated as a normal person ends where her governmental power begins, so stop apologizing for this moron.

Erm, someone hacks your website, you find out about it from a gleeful jeer on another website, and you naturally conclude “of course the jeerer had nothing to do with it?” I wouldn’t. Nor would most people.

Slightly worrying to see how many people are slavering over the idea of a lawsuit over someone expressing an opinion.

“Erm, someone hacks your website, you find out about it from a gleeful
jeer on another website, and you naturally conclude “of course the
jeerer had nothing to do with it?” I wouldn’t. Nor would most people.”

Her website can call her an expert rocket scientist too, for all I care – her *public actions regarding the internet* prove total ignorance of the issues on which she’s actually (for some insane reason) been given authority.

All the experience in the world isn’t stopping her decision-making being stupid and technically ignorant. So if she has an ethernet background, that’s actually _worse_, since she damn well ought to know better. It suggests she’s wilfully ignorant, not just badly informed.

What decisions specifically? Sure her website can call her Einstein and she can put whatever she likes on there. Are you referring to decisions made while she was at Ofcom? It’s easier for her to criticise now she’s in the out crowd and not in charge, but what has she done/said that’s so stupid?

Seriously, what ignorant decisions has she made? I’d like to know. Apologies for my highly sarcastic response earlier but I couldn’t resist. No malice intended, I just like to rattle cages like pretty much everyone else on the internet…

Seriously…. scroll up to the article we’re here reading. It’s a litany of bullying and ineptitude. But it’s not what I was talking about; I’m talking about her support for the porn-blocker measures, which are very much her work and consist entirely of technical ignorance and political arrogance from start to end. Take a look here: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2013/website-filtering-problems-are-a-load-of-cock for a start on this woman’s idiocy.

(And no malice imputed; cage-rattling is endemic online, and I ignore it. Although I advise against it; too many bars around here already…)

You’re talking about Clare Perry? Absolutely. Her ineptitude means there’s now a libel case on the cards. I like how she tried to bully Guido and hint that she could end his paid gig at the Sun. Not only is she a bully and technically ignorant but the evidence she’s presented in support of her campaigns is disgraceful, to put it mildly. Whatever the result of the Staines v Perry case (if it even comes to that) I hope she loses her job. But I thought we were talking about Chi Onwurah’s ignorance?

You cant speak for most people, but speaking for myself, If I was to discover my site hacked and then REPORTED on a site that had grounds for glee and was also a site that regularly reported on the subject of news of this manner, then I would reasonably conclude that they had reported it out of a sense of glee and that it was news. And not because they did it.

Again with the ‘you naturally conclude’ – nothing to do with the law and defamation of character.
Sheesh.
You said above ‘There is no issue of defamation’.
Yes there is. Clearly, and in British law an exact prescident has been set.

Most people would not. All you are asserting is that you are at least as stupid as Claire Perry. What you suppose is reasonable does not set the benchmark for anything other than exactly how mistaken you, personally, can be.

“We merely have someone not technically literate stumbling over the terminology, and responding to the baiting from Guido in the same way that any normal person would.”

Hello im a normal person and when someone says something i think is a sly jab at me i turn into a schoolyard bully too! … oh wait… Not.

As for the technically literate bit, christ, being entirely wrong because of lack of knowledge on the subject matter and how it can be affected/used is not ‘stumbling over terminology’ its just being wrong.

Wrong because they dont know. Aka, doesnt know what the fuck he/she is talking about and therefore is speaking on/about a matter it would be wisest they kept their trap shut up about.

That borders on religious stupidity, GOD EXISTS, BECAUSE I SAY IT DOES, I HAVE NO PROOF, IM RIGHT YOUR WRONG, NO I HAVE NOT RESEARCHED THE SUBJECT.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THATS RETARDED?

Seriously, people with the power to make this woman cease and desist or infact the people who employ her, should do so /fire her post haste.

She can only do you more damage at this point

“When your in a hole stop digging”

Or in her case stop trying to blast a hole through to china. Y’know… either one works.

Leaving aside the fact that you show as much understanding of defamation law as my duvet…

Referring to reporting, no matter what tone that reporting takes, as sponsoring is not being “not technically literate”, it’s being not *functionally* literate – it’s lacking basic comprehension skills. Claiming that you would react in the same way is admitting to a similar lack yourself. Claiming that “any normal person would” react likewise is admitting that you also lack a basic sense of perspective and fundamental socialised affect.

I choose to take the charitable interpretation that you’re a sock puppet for Claire Perry or one of her chums, because the alternative – that you genuinely believe what you’re saying, and haven’t simply been forced into those ridiculous positions for reasons of personal loyalty – is just fucking terrifying in a sentient being.

This with big ruddy bells on. How come not one single journalist has pointed this out to Cameron yet?
“Surely Prime Minister, with such a tabloid baiting headline you should have some of your biggest political players involved on this rather than a ministerial secreatary? I mean, is the ministry for Justice ‘all tied up right now on something more important?’

As a systems engineer and computer coder who has developed large scale database driven ecommerce sites, I am utterly appalled at the utter myopic ignorance of this I.T. Illiterate Claire Perry MP. An MP being IT illiterate is not a surprising thing. What is absolutely unforgivable is her closed minded refusenik attitude to learning anything at all about the technological reality of that which she campaigns and her blind and stubbornly ignorant bullying insistance on being right in spite of all the evidence to the contrary and her bullying imposition of useless and utterly unworkable policies based on her ignorant and myopic technical illiteracy.

She is a vile, foul and stupid woman. I do hope that her constituents vote her out in 2015.

Well, your article certainly made me think again about this issue: but in the opposite way you intended. You see, I don’t want to see the web subject to state control. But this is not because I want access to porn. On the contrary; I do NOT want to access smut even accidentally. Nor is it because I want to receive spam either (you can believe me on this, trust me).

It is because state control of the web will certainly mean first and foremost the censorship of ideas; a way to prevent the expression of political, religious, or just plain normal ideas which someone in power does not want said.

You may think this is not happening now. But it is. We live in an age when harmless elderly sandwichboardmen wearing signs saying “Prepare to meet thy God” and the like are being thrown into cells for preaching against “sin”, just as such cranks have done for a century or more without anybody noticing. We live in an age when making some politically incorrect statement can cost you your job, your family its bread, and you may be dragged through the courts edgeways. An accusation of “hate” can mean a prison sentence (and you have to be a total screaming fascist to lock people up for what they feel, for heaven’s sake!) In short, we live in an age of bigoted political censorship of dissent and speech. And this post is merely worrying about access to dirty pictures? Come on, mate! Bigger fish to fry.

Now Mrs Perry wants to do something about the filth problem. I have no issue with that, and nor should you. Unfortunately your article suggests that you don’t care about freedom of speech, but rather just want dirty pix online. It suggests that you are prepared to scream “censorship” to defend them. That is not a respectable position, and I ask you to rethink it. We mustn’t shout “wolf” when there is no wolf.

No, sir, I think you have this issue all wrong. Really. Never mind the smut; the real issue is how we push back against state control of what we are allowed to write online.

First they came for the porn, and I did not speak out, because I hate porn.

What “filth problem”? This is just a rehash of the censors’ position. You allude to a “problem” being solved without even explicitly saying what the problem is. So no one can judge potential solutions on any basis whatsoever. This is how things creep in the back door. Banning rape porn is easy because who is going to stand up and say “actually, I’m an upstanding pillar of the community and I *like* rape porn”? (Except that Louise Mensch said pretty much exactly that, so we’ll see how it pans out …)

Also, people may quite rightly scream “censorship” when there are censors sniffing around, don’t you think? It doesn’t cease to be censorship just because you happen to agree with the censor.

Actually, porn isn’t nearly as prevalent as a lot of people seem to think. Only 2-4% of sites on the internet are sex-related, and that percentage seems to be decreasing over time, not increasing. Part of the reason why there’s such a misconception that “the web is awash with porn” is probably because those sites thrive on clickbait – so ads and spam for those sites are much more common. Also, in terms of traffic, social media sites beat entertainment sites (which includes, but isn’t limited to, all porn sites), so that’s not it either.

So no, there’s no “filth problem”, or if there was a “filth problem” it seems to be resolving itself all right. If you’re having trouble with accidentally finding porn, you might want to reconsider the sites you visit, or installing an add-on for your browser to help you block that stuff out.

As stated – either back up your claims with evidence, or stop trotting out the old ‘filth problem’ line. Without evidence, this is nothing but a moral crusade – and we all know how well those usually turn out.

If you’re asking me where I got the 2-4% from, that would be from the only two systematic scientific studies I’ve found (unless you include Optenet’s, which I do not*). The first, from 2006, was a random sampling of sites by Berkley professor of statistic Philip Stark, and gave a figure of 1.5%. The second, from Forbes in 2010, looked at the number of porn sites out of the million most highly trafficked websites and gave the higher figure of 4%. Though 1.5% is technically more accurate, the 4% is probably more relevant in this instance.

*Optenet gives a much higher figure of 37%. I’m not keen on their report since their methodology isn’t clear (they claim to use the “most advanced AI techniques” and that’s about it). As far as I can tell, they used web crawlers to find and classify links (which would over-inflate the types of sites that use ads and clickbait the most). I also find it suspect as they have a funding outcome bias (their business is selling web filter software).

Statistics with decent methodology is better than making claims with absolutely no basis, I’ve found (that would come under the “lies”, or possibly the “damned lies”, I’d think). You are welcome to disbelieve the studies, but at least ask yourself why you believe what you do and what evidence there is to back up your beliefs.

And I did not intend for my comment to be a personal jab, I’m sorry. I meant it as a sincere suggestion. I use web filters all the time, I just think it’s a pretty good practice in general.

You’ve explained yourself and backed it up perfectly sufficiently. I can’t accept that Demon is doing anything other than trolling as they’ve yet to be able to back up their claims even a fraction as well as you’ve done, either statistically or logically. As well, Demon started throwing insults first and is now attempting to hide behind the same aegis; it doesn’t work like that.

I’d say something directly to ’em but quite frankly I’m not impressed by what I’ve seen so far and don’t really have the patience to beat my head against a wall. Call that a ‘personal jab’ if you’d like, but so far they haven’t shown anything to disprove the notion and could do so by responding with something of worth rather than useless and irrelevant one-off/short comments. If I had to guess though, they’ll likely keep on with their head-in-the-sand approach and do nothing to legitimize their point. Just a guess, after all. Save your time and effort.

Please don’t stop, this is quite entertaining. I am actually around 75% convinced that you are actually either Ms. Perry or a close friend/relative/partner/stalker of hers. Because no one could possibly be this hilariously obtuse without having something personal vested in the outcome of the argument.

Nah I’m sorry. I’m worried about them controlling my porn intake first and foremost. All this tinfoil hat conspiracy theory stuff just makes me giggle. By the sheer dimwitted banner shaking idiocy of this MP indicates if there was any kind of conspiracy, it would be one that aims to marginalise voters at best. Certainly not ‘control freedom of speech’.

What a joke of a democracy we have here. Perry should be fired immediately – if nothing else but for wildly overstepping her bounds by hijacking important and potentially constructive meetings. If I did that in my job, you can bet I wouldn’t be seeing the inside of a meeting room any time soon.

This whole porn debacle angers me. I feel like the ignorance of policy-makers is willful. Where the hell do we go from here?

maybe MPs should be forced to take a IQ and technology tests before they get their 9% payrise? imbeciles with no concept of the shit they spout on about. did she threaten and libel him online? clever woman.

maybe MPs should be forced to take a IQ and technology tests before they get their 9% payrise? imbeciles with no concept of the shit they spout on about. did she threaten and libel him online? clever woman.

Tech-illiterate numpties “advising” the Govt on Internet porn… I mean….*snigger*.. You couldn’t make this up… It’s really no wonder that Cameron has been spouting such complete crap the past few days if this is the caliber of the people “advising” him..

Seriously, right? Far coast checking in; love Alabamanians or whatever the hell we call you, but the religious/conservative elements that are unavoidable in Southern politics scare the hell outta me and would make something like this not seem too out of the blue for there.. but I’m just surprised (somewhat) that the UK government would think this would fly without significant issues.

Hmmm, seems we have another power hungry secretary plannning on world domination 🙂 Maybe she should learn something about the field before commenting? Oh, hold on, that’s anathemic to a politician, or even a politician’s typist.

I think the most important thing to emerge from this whole amusing episode is the fact that Claire Perry is involved with the Department of Defence. Which tends to highlight – as a number of other readers have done – the real reasons for this apparent war on porn: as a first step towards government censorship or control of the broader Web. That politicians should turn to IT to further their control of society is inevitable. Perhaps we should be pleased that the politicians concerned are not very technically aware – because it’s easier to spot what they’re doing? On the other hand, Ms Perry’s efforts to smear the ghastly Fawkes are almost certainly aimed at general (i.e. not necessarily technical) readers, and may not reflect her own knowledge or skill level in the least; politicians regularly employ this tactic.

Hey, guys? You all mean she’s TECHNOLOGICALLY illiterate i.e. terrible with TECHNOLOGY. Being “technically” illiterate would mean, for example, one would fail a literacy test. If you’re going to pay so much attention to the words someone else is using, please pay at least some attention to your own words as well. If you don’t, people might start doubting those internet law degrees you all seem to have…